1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic communication systems for both data and voice signals. More specifically, the invention relates to the combination of wireless phone jack technology, making use of power lines as a communication channel, and radio frequency (RF) receivers. This combination permits a telephone user to establish a communication channel with a standard telephone extension via the power lines of a building or facility, without requiring the extension telephone to be directly connected to the power line.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of power line and wireless telephone voice and/or data communication systems have been developed and are used to facilitate communication in locations where there is little or no availability of dedicated telephone/data wires. While these approaches may address some of the problems encountered in power line or wireless communications they typically do not provide the desirable feature of permitting the remote telephone extension to be able to establish and maintain the communication link without being directly connected to either a telephone line or the power line while still taking advantage of the power line channel for enhancing the signal coverage within a building or facility. The following U.S. patent documents are referred to the reader for general background. Each of these patents is hereby incorporated by reference for the material contained therein.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,172 describes a telephone extension system that communicates with a conventional subscriber telephone line where the subscriber""s line telephone is located, through available AC power wires which carry signals that may be modulations of RF carrier frequencies and which are coupled to the power lines.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,058,678 describes a remote transmitting or receiving device that communicates with a conventional subscriber telephone through available AC power wires which carry signals that may be modulations of RF carrier frequencies and which are coupled to the power wires.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,471,399 describes a communication system for transmitting baseband digital signals on an electrical power line.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,475,193 describes a power line carrier telephone extension system for transmitting electrical signals between the telephone line and an extension telephone over the AC electric power line available at a telephone subscriber""s premises.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,479,033 describes a power line telephone extension system for carrying electrical signals between a subscriber""s telephone line of a conventional telephone communication system and the subscriber""s remote transmit-receive device over the AC electric power wires available to the subscriber.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,495,386 describes a power line telephone extension system for carrying electrical signals between a subscriber""s telephone line and the subscriber""s remote telephone extension over the AC electric power wires available to the subscriber.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,594 describes a power line carrier telephone extension system for transmitting electrical signals between the telephone line and one or more extension telephones over the AC electric power line available at a telephone subscriber""s premises.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,523,307 describes a power line carrier telephone extension system for transmitting electrical signals between the telephone line and an extension telephone over the AC electric power line available at a telephone subscriber""s premises.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,701,945 describes a carrier current telephone system provided for buildings.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,066,939 describes a power line carrier communication system operating on a conventional three wire power line that uses more than one of the several RF transmission lines that are defined by the three wire power line to improve communication between units of the system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,634 describes a method and system for conducting multiple access simultaneous telephone communications in full duplex either over the power lines of a building or using RF transmission.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,530,737 describes a method and system for conducting secure power line carrier communications in full duplex over the power lines of a building.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,804 describes a wireless communication system that includes a plurality of wireless terminals and a base station for periodically generating a fixed-length communication frame composed of an information field.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,204 describes a system for method for providing interactive multimedia services to subscriber premises utilizing wireless and power line distribution within the subscriber premise.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,706,191 describes a method for bringing an appliance and/or an electrical or mechanical system of a residence into communication with another, or with a control device within the residence or with an other communication source outside the residence.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,737,400 describes a no-ring access telecommunications system that is connected to a subscriber""s telephone line at the demarcation point between the public switched telephone network and the telephone line or at the utility meter site on the subscriber""s premises, or at a central office.
It is desirable to provide a method and system for telephone communication within buildings or facilities that makes use of both power line and RF communication channels. In particular, it is desirable to provide a communications system that provides the means for communicating to an external telephone service, whether wired or wireless, within a building or structure where direct RF signals are often shielded without requiring the addition of dedicated telephone wires.
Wireless and A/C power line communication systems provide many important advantages over wired telephone line systems. This is particularly the case where standard telephone jacks are limited or unavailable, or where multiple devices require communication over the same channel. Many of the advantages are discussed in further detail in the previously cited patent literature.
Accordingly, it is the primary object of this invention to provide a telephone communication system that provides for communication within buildings or other structures using the combination of the AC power line channel and an RF wireless channel.
Another object of this invention is to provide a telephone communication system which provides for communication between a base unit, connected both to a standard telephone jack and to the power line, and an extension unit, not connected to either the power line or a telephone line.
Another object of this invention is to provide a telephone communication system, which provides for communication between a base unit and an extension unit and where the extension unit makes use of a RF wireless channel to communicate with the powerline channel.
A further object of this invention is to provide a telephone communication system for the communication of signals using both A/C power lines and wireless RF signals where error correction is performed to maintain data integrity.
Additional objects, advantages, and other novel features of this invention will be set forth in part in the description that follows and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned with the practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of this invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. Still other objects of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description wherein there is shown and described the preferred embodiment of this invention, simply by way of illustration of one of the modes best suited to carry out this invention. As it will be realized, this invention is capable of other different embodiments, and its several details, and specific electronic circuits, are capable of modification in various aspects without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and descriptions should be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.
To achieve the foregoing and other objectives, and in accordance with the purposes of the present invention, a base unit, an extension unit, and, in the preferred embodiment, an A/C power line to RF antenna are provided. The base unit includes a line interface circuit; a signal processor and a data link transceiver. The extension unit includes a transceiver, a signal processor, and preferably an antenna means for communicating with a power line antenna. The preferred embodiment of the invention also has a power line antenna unit, which includes a power line interface, a signal converter and an RF transceiver for communicating with the extension unit.